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I have a Apple 4K TV, budget Hisense TV (Android TV) setup. I recently bought the new Sonos Beam Gen 2 sound bar to up the audio game. For some reason, I couldn't get Dolby Atmos to play from the Apple TV thru the TV to the Sonos soundbar. By all accounts, it should have but I couldn't get it to work.  FYI, Sonos sound bars only have 1 HDMI port so this is the required setup.

Before shipping back the Sonos, I decided to give Android TV interface a try again. Very impressed. Atmos worked like a charm on Netflix and via the AppleTV+ app. A year ago, I felt the Apple TV device performance was the best and decided to ignore Android TV.  With my new found appreciation for Android, the Apple TV device is going to be relegated to my secondary TV.

On the new Sonos Beam Gen 2 device, nothing but high marks from me. Without any other surround sound speakers, it mimics sound above and around me. Not too mention that speech comes through much clearer. Much better than my previous basic Samsung sound bar.  My understanding is that the Sonos Arc sound bar is better than the Beam but Beam is half the cost.

Edited by Nice Guy Eddie
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I have a Apple 4K TV, budget Hisense TV (Android TV) setup. I recently bought the new Sonos Beam Gen 2 sound bar to up the audio game. For some reason, I couldn't get Dolby Atmos to play from the Apple TV thru the TV to the Sonos soundbar. By all accounts, it should have but I couldn't get it to work.  FYI, Sonos sound bars only have 1 HDMI port so this is the required setup.
Before shipping back the Sonos, I decided to give Android TV interface a try again. Very impressed. Atmos worked like a charm on Netflix and via the AppleTV+ app. A year ago, I felt the Apple TV device performance was the best and decided to ignore Android TV.  With my new found appreciation for Android, the Apple TV device is going to be relegated to my secondary TV.
On the new Sonos Beam Gen 2 device, nothing but high marks from me. Without any other surround sound speakers, it mimics sound above and around me. Not too mention that speech comes through much clearer. Much better than my previous basic Samsung sound bar.  My understanding is that the Sonos Arc sound bar is better than the Beam but Beam is half the cost.

What was the chain setup? ATV -> Sonos -> TV?

Are you now using eARC for audio out to the Sonos?
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1 hour ago, Anton Chigurh said:


What was the chain setup? ATV -> Sonos -> TV?

Are you now using eARC for audio out to the Sonos?

Sonos is only positioned at the end of the chain, so the TV has to be in the middle. Many sound bars are in the middle with multiple HDMI connections but Sonos only has the 1 connector. I did read that some people have success using a HDMI splitter with Sonos but it also sounded a bit erratic. 

My TV is 4K and supports Atmos but only has a ARC HDMI connector. Budget 4K.  I am able to get Atmos with AppleTV+ and Netflix. The rest is at Dolby 5.1. 

This is my first Sonos product and very satisfied. I'm interested in the subwoofer next. If I had other devices like a gaming system or watched blu-ray, I don't know how well that would work using the Sonos sound bar and a cheaper TV.

Edited by Nice Guy Eddie
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Signed up for the Hulu black Friday deal ($2 per month) last year and just got notified that it's going to run out (revert to full price). Not really interested at that point (YTTV, Netflix, D+, Amazon Prime, Apple TV in the mix already). 

Any way to maintain the BFriday pricing? Anyone managed to sign up for another year with a different email or something?

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6 hours ago, NWBuck said:

Signed up for the Hulu black Friday deal ($2 per month) last year and just got notified that it's going to run out (revert to full price). Not really interested at that point (YTTV, Netflix, D+, Amazon Prime, Apple TV in the mix already). 

Any way to maintain the BFriday pricing? Anyone managed to sign up for another year with a different email or something?

In previous years, they've had the same deal for new customers. You could sign up under a different email account. The downside of a new account is that your viewing history doesn't transfer. 

disclaimer: no idea if they will offer this again this year.

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Signed up for the Hulu black Friday deal ($2 per month) last year and just got notified that it's going to run out (revert to full price). Not really interested at that point (YTTV, Netflix, D+, Amazon Prime, Apple TV in the mix already). 
Any way to maintain the BFriday pricing? Anyone managed to sign up for another year with a different email or something?
Hulu free for Sprint customers. No idea if that still a thing with the merger, but I'm still getting it free.
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  • 4 weeks later...
3 minutes ago, Skipper said:

After some chatter that Roku/Youtube were going to escalate the war and remove the youtube channel (in addition to YTTV) from future uploads, just got an email that apparently they cut a deal and YTTV is also back for new customers.   

There has been a lot of brinkmanship from YTTV lately, but they always work something out at the 11th hour.

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3 hours ago, Skipper said:

After some chatter that Roku/Youtube were going to escalate the war and remove the youtube channel (in addition to YTTV) from future uploads, just got an email that apparently they cut a deal and YTTV is also back for new customers.   

Was about to post the same thing.  I have never been able to use the native YTTV app, as I bout my Roku devices after the squabble had started.  I'll be interested to see how different it is from the YT linked version.  

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2 hours ago, tbone_ said:

ESPN scroll saying YTTV may lose ESPN in a couple of days.

Blackout includes local ABC channel, so no ESPN and ABC during the bowl season. But they're reducing the bill by $15 during the blackout so you get Game Show Network at a reduced rate!

 

Spoiler

We welcome a renewed agreement provided we can reach equitable terms with Disney. However, if we are unable to reach a deal by Friday, the Disney-owned channels will no longer be available on YouTube TV starting December 17, and we will decrease our monthly price by $15, from $64.99 to $49.99 (while Disney content remains off of our platform).

 

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17 hours ago, tbone_ said:

ESPN scroll saying YTTV may lose ESPN in a couple of days.

From the email:

Quote

We welcome a renewed agreement provided we can reach equitable terms with Disney. However, if we are unable to reach a deal by Friday, the Disney-owned channels will no longer be available on YouTube TV starting December 17, and we will decrease our monthly price by $15, from $64.99 to $49.99 (while Disney content remains off of our platform).

We would love every member to stay with our service, but we give you the flexibility to pause or cancel your membership at any time. If you want to continue watching some of Disney’s content, consider signing up for their own service, The Disney Bundle, which they offer for $13.99/month and which is subject to its own terms and restrictions

 

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11 hours ago, tbone_ said:

You can’t just buy a subscription to ESPN?

Some networks like CNN and ESPN have lucrative deals with the cable providers and other systems that forbid streaming only access. NFL has this as well.

You're seeing the _____+ networks spring up as sister channels to offer "similar" content.

 

 

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I absolutely love YouTube TV. Mostly for the DVR, and watch anywhere convenience. I will likely stay with them even through an ESPN outage. Not a horrible year to not see a bowl game since the Longhorns aren't in one.

But it occurs to me, Hulu is never going to have a carriage problem with ESPN. Mouse takes care of mouse.

Anyone got recent experience between Hulu with live TV versus YouTube TV? Particularly interface and ease of use?

It also occurs to me that that last question might be part of ESPN's calculus with this renegotiation. I never considered Hulu with live TV until this moment.

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On 12/15/2021 at 10:38 AM, DCLonghorn said:

I absolutely love YouTube TV. Mostly for the DVR, and watch anywhere convenience. I will likely stay with them even through an ESPN outage. Not a horrible year to not see a bowl game since the Longhorns aren't in one.

But it occurs to me, Hulu is never going to have a carriage problem with ESPN. Mouse takes care of mouse.

Anyone got recent experience between Hulu with live TV versus YouTube TV? Particularly interface and ease of use?

It also occurs to me that that last question might be part of ESPN's calculus with this renegotiation. I never considered Hulu with live TV until this moment.

I much prefer YTTV over Hulu from interface and ease of use standpoint. YTTV via new Chromecast is best streaming setup I've had by far

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This was Disney's plan. They had all the leverage here. They knew if Google didn't accept, where are a lot of people going to come running? Right to Hulu, which they own. A win win for them. I think so many of those companies are in collusion. YouTube TV might suffer but that's a piss in the bucket for Google as a whole.

Fuck all those greedy billionaire corporations. Google and Disney. Disney is trying to create a monopoly on their live sports content. Don't think FuboTv won't be next to bow out because of their demands. They want to funnel everyone to Hulu. 

This is not the 3rd streaming service I will cancel. Sling, PS Vue, YTTV. The options are getting extremely limited. Might as well go back to fucking satellite at this point.

Edited by Vic Mackey
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10 minutes ago, Buzzrock said:

YTTV is dropping the price $15 and I can add ESPN+ for $7. Why wouldn’t I just do that?

Is there much content that you like with espn+?

rant: espn demands too high of a price from cable and streaming services. Good for YT for kicking them to the curb but like shown above, but it will cost YT subscribers.  Crazy that espn and Disney channels was about 25% of the yttv subscription cost.

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5 hours ago, Vic Mackey said:

This was Disney's plan. They had all the leverage here. They knew if Google didn't accept, where are a lot of people going to come running? Right to Hulu, which they own. A win win for them. I think so many of those companies are in collusion. YouTube TV might suffer but that's a piss in the bucket for Google as a whole.

Fuck all those greedy billionaire corporations. Google and Disney. Disney is trying to create a monopoly on their live sports content. Don't think FuboTv won't be next to bow out because of their demands. They want to funnel everyone to Hulu. 

This is not the 3rd streaming service I will cancel. Sling, PS Vue, YTTV. The options are getting extremely limited. Might as well go back to fucking satellite at this point.

Yep, headed that way for sure. Just jumped over to Hulu and had to add multi screen and cloud storage just to get it comparable to YouTube TV. So, what used to be around $50/month not too long ago with PS Vue is now up to $86 with Hulu. Still more than half what I was paying for satellite when I canceled it, but definitely creeping that direction. Up next will be contracts, mark it down. Bound to happen though, so what are you gonna do? It's definitely a better mouse trap than satellite and I've been benefitting from the savings for the better part of 5 years since cutting the cord. It is what it is.

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20 minutes ago, Buzzrock said:

Are all the bowl games that are going to be on ABC and the ESPN channels going to be on ESPN+? If so then all I lose is local news and ABC programs that I don’t watch.

I don’t know but I thought espn+ was mainly programming that wasn’t on espn.

The reason espn and cnn doesn’t offer a streaming-only version of their main content is that they charge providers a large amount per subscriber. This deal gives providers protection that espn won’t offer their content outside of a package deal with the providers.

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3 minutes ago, Party_Taco said:

Mostly blows because the YT interface is so easy to use… haven’t spent a ton of time with Hulu but suppose I don’t have a choice now.

I've been playing around with it a little this morning and Hulu, so far, seems pretty easy. Haven't really found many drawbacks yet. Looks like there may even be at least one improvement in that you can select "new episodes" or "all episodes" when recording. That wasn't an option with YTTV (or at least I was never able to figure it out) and it used to drive me crazy because some shows would just pile up with years worth of reruns and it got a pretty challenging to determine if stuff was new or old.

That said, the DVR doesn't look to be nearly as good. Looks like Hulu only comes with 50 hours (or you can pay extra for 200 hours, which I did), where YTTV was unlimited. Also looks like live TV only records 15 minutes of history where YTTV recorded it all starting when you click on it. TBD if either of these will be a problem for me. I have no clue how many hours I will need, as I didn't ever have to pay attention to it with YTTV. Maybe 200, especially without piling up old reruns, will be more than sufficient? Also, I can't really think of a time when I'd need more than 15 minutes of history. I guess to pause to take a massive dump that lasts more than 15 minutes, or if I get a phone call or something?

Like everything else, I'm sure there are pros and cons to both. But most of what seems "worse" to me is probably actually just "different" and will just take some getting used to.

Full disclosure...I've only messed with it on my desktop to this point, so maybe the TV version will be completely different, but so far, so good.

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